A Girl Like You
by Powder Gangers Go
Summary: I love you as certain dark things are to be loved. In secret, between the shadow and the soul. Tyzula Advent drabbles.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Here's my advent entry, very late thanks to school. I'm aiming to have at least 12 drabbles by the end of Advent.**

**A GIRL LIKE YOU**

**HOPE**

Ty Lee sat rather dejectedly on the front step of the Ladies Academy. Her princess was not at school today - some kind of royal engagement - and usually that would have made Ty Lee miserable. But maybe today it was for the best.

The approaching dance with the Boys Academy was making her more and more of a nervous wreck every day. She had to act excited, and with her boy crazy reputation maybe she could have enjoyed it in the past. Being at school with only girls was fairly boring when Ty Lee wanted at least someone to date.

But the one Ty Lee really wanted to go to the dance with was Princess Azula.

Mainly because Ty Lee had been in love with her for years.

"What if she freaks out?" neurotically continued Ty Lee as she stared at Mai, whom looked as if she would rather be dead than be having this conversation. "She can do better, anyway."

"Well, no one else is going to ask Azula to the dance," crisply said Mai. She was tired of this conversation already and it had only just begun.

"Why not?" demanded Ty Lee.

"Because Azula is terrifying."

Ty Lee felt the first glimmer of hope about her crush on Azula. The very first in a long, long history of viciously pining.

"You really think so?"

"Everyone thinks so. Just ask her. You don't have to tell her about all the secret feelings you bore me with on a daily basis. Just tell her you want to go to the dance." Mostly, Mai wanted Ty Lee to shut up. And hopefully it would make Azula shut up about the crush neither girl seemed to notice was mutual.

Ty Lee beamed, walking away with more hope for her future with Azula than she has had in a long, long time.

If only handling Azula were this easy, wearily thought Mai.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

**HISTORY**

It didn't begin with confessing feelings before the eclipse. It didn't begin when they first had sex. It didn't begin with Azula forgiving Ty Lee and Ty Lee forgiving Azula years after the war.

It began when they first started to look at each other a little too long to be just friends.

And it never ended. Not even at the Boiling Rock. Not even when Azula screamed and broke things or when Ty Lee dated someone else.

But what began with stolen glances ended today.

Or, at least, so they tried.

"You're my past and I should be focusing on my future." Yet, Ty Lee could not manage to imagine a future without Azula in it.

How do you stop loving someone you have thought about every day since you were eight?

Consciously, Ty Lee knew she had to end this before it ended her. But even the blood in her veins and breath in her lungs pleaded for her to stay.

It did not help that Azula sat on the end of the bed as if it were a throne. Her expression was steely. Not even one finger or corner of her lip revealed how pained and terrified she was.

"Ty Lee," coolly said Azula, speaking for the first time in twenty minutes. "You can walk away, but you will never forget me. You can hide at the ends of the Earth and still be tormented by your thoughts of me.

You're in love with me. And it hurts. It hurts terribly but you will endure because you need me. You know you need me, and so I know you will always come back whenever you run."

"I want you to need me. I always admired how you never need anybody but…" Ty Lee averted her eyes and then slowly looked up at Azula. "We won't ever really work out. I'm a circus freak and you're a princess. I just want to end this now so I don't have to suffer anymore."

Azula stood up. Ty Lee stepped back.

For one of the few times in her life, Azula sounded genuine as she softly said, "You are so much more than a circus freak. Stay, and I can show you why."

Azula leaned in, teeth bared for a rough and passionate kiss, but Ty Lee stepped away.

"I love you. I know we have a history together. But I have to end this before it ends me."

"It will end you one way or another whether you leave here or not. You need me, you need me and it will be your downfall."

"I have to go."

Ty Lee was halfway out the door when Azula shouted for her to stop. Slowly, Ty Lee turned to face her, blood running cold from Azula's regal tone.

"I need you. I need you too."

Ty Lee set down her bag.

She needed to leave. She wanted to leave.

But she couldn't


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

**HOMEWRECKER**

Ty Lee could tell it was truly over for one reason and one reason only. He was too calm as he packed up her things, remaining silent as she uttered out useless excuses.

"Sokka," breathed Ty Lee as she stared at the packed bags. Three years of a perfect relationship in neat piles that showed this was no longer anger and there was no longer any hope for them. "Sokka."

"I trusted you in the Fire Nation. It took you two days to sleep with her." Sokka frowned, expression darkening. "I wish I could say I was surprised. Hurt, broken, angry, disappointed, but not surprised."

"I never thought — I was surprised!"

"You're in love with her. And yeah we've had a good thing going on but I knew the whole time that I'd only have you as long as that fucking bitch Princess let us."

Face suddenly flushed, Ty Lee cried out, "And you still love Suki!"

He seemed too calm up until that moment, up until Ty Lee spoke a name that was meant to be always kept silent, just like Azula's.

"And you still love Princess Azula!" Sokka paused to catch his breath. "This was always temporary. One of us was going to split the minute we got the one we actually wanted. I guess you got it first."

Ty Lee averted her eyes and then softly closed them. She could still taste Azula's lips against hers. She could still feel the soft skin, the milky white of her breasts with blue veins as soft streams. She could still see those intense golden eyes drawing her in again despite all the brutal violence and fiery anger that separated her and her true love for so long.

"I'll take my stuff," whisperer Ty Lee to her boyfriend. "My parents can take me in until I get my own place. They can pay for a ride back to the Fire Nation."

Sokka looked… sad. Perhaps even bent with suppressed regret.

"I'll see you sometime."

"Yeah."

But they will be different people by then.

Ty Lee dared to kiss him one last time. His flicker of a smile turned into a bitter frown as she broke away.

She did not know at the time, but the only lips she would ever kiss again belonged to Princess Azula.

Ty Lee took her things that he so calmly removed from his house.

They did not say a word as she walked away, to send a hawk, to send her back to her family.

To send her back to a woman she needed more than she cared to admit.

She recalled a poem she wrote in the dark of the night while Azula was missing after the Forgetful Valley.

"I fell for you when we were eight, and no matter how many people I date, the only one I will ever love is you."


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

**IMMORTAL**

When Fire Lord Sozin saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.

Sad as that famed quotation may be, Azula thought of it often and wished she had wept over that, instead of sobbing over her failure to conquer even one.

Beside the woman she secretly still loved, she looked out at the view from the palace balcony and thought incessantly about that failure, about that pathetic excuse for an attempt to live up to her ancestors, to be made truly immortal.

At last, Azula dared to look at Ty Lee. She was not smiling, her eyes did not sparkle. As her fingers trembled she looked nothing like her cheery self.

"You look scared," said Azula.

"I, uh…" Ty Lee choked and looked away.

"What are you afraid of?" Azula paused. "What are you most afraid of?"

"Losing out on love," whispered Ty Lee. She wanted to hide it but it was clear of whom she spoke. "Princess… what are you…?"

Azula hesitated as she looked out at the mountains and valleys and city and sea.

"Being forgotten," said Azula, still refusing to look at Ty Lee for fear of revealing emotion.

"You won't be," whispered Ty Lee.

Azula sneered and glared out at the ocean. "How do you know?"

Ty Lee made eye contact. Azula's heart fluttered and it suddenly felt hard to swallow.

"Because you're the most unforgettable person I've ever met in my life." Sincere. It was deeply sincere.

But they did not speak or acknowledge it.

They just resumed staring out at the Fire Nation side by side, wracked with the anxiety of standing so close together.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

FAMILY

In bed one night, Ty Lee decided to disturb the peace in the most sudden and shocking way possible. It started softly, with Ty Lee tapping her wife's shoulder and then escalated more quickly than a leaf in a tornado.

"Let's start a family. Let's do it."

Azula blinked, unable to process the statement for a moment. She did not move as she gave a grandiose and affected sigh of feigned exasperation.

"Ty Lee, for a long time I would have said I simply did not want that. Now perhaps I would not be so strongly opposed. But it will be too complicated. We are two women and I have no desire to go through some convoluted process for a screaming child."

"Fire Lord Rezubia married a woman. They had an heir. He's your ancestor. Sozin's grandfather."

Azula sighed and at long last rolled over to face her wife. "I see you have done your research."

Ty Lee averted her eyes.

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it for a long time."

Azula relented to an extent, at least for the time being, reluctant as she was. She sighed.

"I cannot deny that I have thought about it before. Yet, it is not worthwhile. We gain nothing for so much effort of organizing a way to conceive."

Ty Lee propped herself up, elbow on the pillow, and touched Azula's face.

She whispered breathily, "Close your eyes. I want you to imagine holding a baby with golden eyes for the first time. Imagine watching him or her firebend for the first time and run to you all excited about it. I want you to imagine a first day of school with a kid whose bag is bigger than its body. Imagine sitting and watching them play in the meadow where we used to play as kids. Imagine a tiny sparkly crown. Imagine lullabies and Ember Island and its first word being said just for you…"

Azula did.

She liked those images.

And for a few moments she wanted nothing else than to start a family with Ty Lee.

"Imagine a child just like me, who suffers from the same illness, who has me for a mother which is even worse than my own."

"Azula…"

"Imagine a child who makes the same mistakes that I did."

They fell into mournful silence.


End file.
